7/5/09's rebroadcast was about as I expected. A few notes, though:
-No editing for time, and it wasn't the syndicated version, so the episode ran a little long. Full credits were shown and no names edited. Fox was back on track by the time King of the Hill ended, but I don't know if that was shortened (Don?). They were a little jumpy on the commercial breaks, though; the opening's music fade ended a little early, and act 2's ending of Homer mumbling "waffles" lost the "s". Also, I think the Gracie logo was tweaked a bit, since the colors didn't bleed on Fox, and the transition to the Fox logo was not as smooth (noticeable sound drop between them, a few frames missing from "in association with").
-ACTUAL edit: the back of Bart's cereal box originally had the section containing Krusty's hotline number as "1-909-O-U-KLOWN"; this airing had "1-909-" missing and just replaced with the background color, making the number rather off-center and conspicuous. I suspect this is because 909 became an area code 11/14/92, a ways after the original airing. ("909" was undoubtedly meant to look like a 900 toll number but not be real.) The third airing of this episode was on 4/8/93, though, and I wonder if it was edited then too. Fortunately, the DVD is not edited, though whether it would have been had anyone noticed is another question (or it may be that broadcast follows slightly different rules for phone numbers).
Also:
-Rating (on every act as usual now): PG-DLV. First time this episode got one?
-The sound was really, really quiet, comparatively at least. One wonders if it was a non-compressed version (I'm talking about dynamic range compression, not time compression)... especially like one might find on, oh, DVD.
-No specific dedication to Michael (or altering the credits from "John Jay Smith"), though see below.
-The second airing of this episode had the George Bush clip before it, and the same-length 8F03 intro instead; this airing did use the correct opening.
-Did anyone ever notice that Bart's image on the Rorschach only has pupils in closeup, and they appear to be added in post-production (crisper and don't jitter along with the rest of it)? Nothing to do with the repeat, just neat.
-As for Don's note on being the first episode to be seen on the Fox network after entering syndication, that may be true; if both his airdates list and the barter syndication list are completely accurate, all episodes through season 9 finished on Fox before going into syndication. After that, it may be hard to tell, since stations can make their own schedules. Typically a season begins availability for syndication the fall after it ends, with a handful of episodes (usually those that haven't aired thrice) being withheld until January or so, but I have a nagging feeling I've seen a few instances of stations ignoring the restriction and breaking Don's rule. (Also, Don, you have a misplaced timeslot indicator [-C] for 7G10.)
And.... Last week:
The 6/28/09 repeat of LABF05 began with "Do the Bartman" (or "Do the Bart, Man" for those of you who insist on that title) (7F75). Mostly. The first 10 seconds with the "The Simpsons" chorus and exterior shot of the school did not appear, nor did the credits; I didn't see it in 1990 but I am assured by Brian Petersen that the original Fox airing included both those parts.
This replaced the opening almost entirely, and in fact the TV-14-DLSV rating bug appeared at the start of the video. 5 minutes later, after the video (sans credits) ran its length, a 4-second still card in the 4:3 frame: an image of Homer and "Michael" from 7F24 at the top, and a yellow MG "In Memory of/MICHAEL JACKSON" below. It remains to be seen if an early season 21 episode will repeat this dedication (as with the Phil Hartman one in 5F08/5F22).
Immediately after that, 7 seconds for the TV credits for LABF05, with the usual little fanfare, though IIRC not the *same* fanfare as the original airing. The TV didn't fall off the wall in either version. Nothing else was changed or edited for time, and in fact the whole Fox lineup ran a few minutes behind until finishing up at 10:04.
That is all.